


Tanka

by alltoseek, JessamyGriffith



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessamyGriffith/pseuds/JessamyGriffith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JessamyGriffith and alltoseek exchange tanka (a Japanese poetry form) about Sherlock and John (and Mycroft and Lestrade :-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JessamyGriffith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessamyGriffith/gifts).



> Poems by JessamyGriffith are in normal font; poems by alltoseek are _italicised_.
> 
> Chapter one poems were written pre-season 2

**Tanka Exchange**   


  


**Mycroft and Sherlock**

Rock says to Water  
Why do you not stand steady?  
Like me, Life's anchor  
Water says to Stone, I can't  
I am Life, and must move on

  


 **Lestrade's Thoughts, Watching Sherlock**

Your brilliant mind  
Like a dragonfly, darting  
Alights, then away  
And we, the dull brown sparrows  
Can only watch in envy

  


 **Sherlock Watches John on a Quiet Day**

London's tall cold stones  
Cup the rolling clouds of fog  
As if in great hands  
So John too holds his tea mug  
Watching the steam gently rise

  


 **Unrequited**  
Sherlock to John (TBB)

Cut, lift my heart free  
Slice, spread it out, pin it flat  
Read it like a map  
A surgeon's touch, tracing paths  
See? How all routes lead to you?

  


 **  
_John, John, Sherlock, Sherlock, John/Sherlock_   
**

_Soul shattered, left to  
burn under desert sun, lost  
Mind nourished, fed on  
the detritus of life  
Together our hearts blossom_

  


 **After the Third Hostage**

Fine as a sliver  
The blue sky pulls up the smoke  
Incense for the dead  
Charred beams like fingers accuse  
Burnings as as uniforms watch

  


 **  
The Pool - Thoughts   
**

**Sherlock on John**   


The best adventure  
Was the one I never took  
To you and with you  
Implicitly you trusted  
I'm sorry I let you down

 **John on Sherlock**

Against the darkness  
Your face, your life shining brightly  
is all I love best  
Do not be afraid for us  
For you I would give my all

 _  
**BOOM! (Moriarty)**   
_

_Crashing confusion  
Possibilities explode  
Triumphant over  
all. I live, survive, thrive - all  
others, who cares? They're not me._

  


 **  
Reichenbach   
**

**  
_John_   
**

_I know where I am  
I know where I had left you  
Why am I now lost?  
The tree hangs tenaciously  
Leaves dropping swirling away_

 _Clouds obscure the sun  
Steaming mists rise from the falls  
Sun breaks through the clouds  
Yet I shiver in wet shrouds  
Water streams over rocks, my face_

 _Crashing and roaring  
The thundering in my chest  
Water spills, flowing on  
wearing sharp edged rocks to round  
Through my worn heart the blood still_

 _Mist rises, breathing  
Water, drinking air, no place  
to land; fire quenched  
Sight vanished, sound drowned, wetness  
surrounding, burying all sense_

 **Sherlock to John**  
(linked to above)

Rootless I'm drifting  
Like seaweed I twist, unmoored  
Tidal, pulled away  
I long to find my way back  
Your heart is always my anchor

 ** _Sherlock to John_**  
(linked to above)

 _Hurricanes destroy  
Tendrils reaching, none escape  
When I kill the last  
I will return to you, safe  
anchor, the eye of my storm_

 **John in Despair**  
(linked to above)

Caught up in your wake  
I was weightless, tossed aloft  
into sensation  
In your absence I fall, a husk.  
Life - a grey desert alone

 _  
**From Sherlock to John**   
_

_Mountains scream sky-high  
bar harsh world, enclose, enfold  
quiet world, peace, calm  
My mind screams out for you, lost  
as I am to you, safe love_

 **John in Baker Street, Waiting**

Smothering absence  
Silence, a blanket, stifles  
Choking breath and sound  
Skeins of violin music  
Hang fading in memory

Curling, a dark hair  
tangled in the comb's teeth  
Softly it breaks me  
in the shape of your absence  
I am hanging, untethered.


	2. Comment!Tanka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tanka from comments to the first chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems by JessamyGriffith are in normal font; poems by alltoseek are _italicised_.

**John Returns to England**  
Green, gold, scarlet  
Tints of war coloured my life  
With khaki, dust, blood  
Grey and cold, London’s desert  
Drains vividness like my wound

_**Sherlock Meets John**  
Red, scarlet, crimson  
All the colours of my world  
I see, I observe  
Details reveal all to me  
No mysteries in my mind_

_I see you, observe:  
White, tan, sandy, lines and limp  
All known. If I bring  
Dangerous colour to your  
Life, to mine you bring feeling_

**The Call of Secrets**  
in the closed drawer  
you can try to forget me  
yet I still whisper  
'Bored? Depressed? I'll change your life  
I promise. Just let it go.'

_In the other room  
You can try to ignore it  
Yet it still calls you  
'Desire a new adventure?  
A heart's promise. Let it love.'_

_**(and the cracky version)**  
In the other room  
You can try to ignore him  
Yet he's still calling  
'Tea, please, John! Black; two sugars.'  
'Sherlock! Why is the milk green?!'_


End file.
